Halo The Series Takes A Grittier Approach in S2

NARRATOR: Games in this podcast range from E to M.

- Hello, and welcome to The Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast that comes to you from inside Xbox. And you're going to be meeting a ton of people from across Xbox this week. We're going to be talking about GDC. We're going to be talking about Halo the TV series, season 2. And we're going to meet some people actually outside of Xbox working on MLB The Show 24, which is out next week. It's a very exciting time.

- Yeah.

- And I've got some great people to talk through some of this stuff with. Hailey Geller, I have not seen you in a long time.

- I know. It's been a minute.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. How you been? What have you been up to?

- I have been at work.

[LAUGHTER]

Went to a few concerts over the weekend. I actually saw Bad Bunny--

- Nice.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right.

- --who I am obsessed with. And I also saw Nicki Minaj. And she had a special guest with Tyga.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wow.

- Very music-filled couple of weeks.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Are these back-to-back days?

- Back-to-back days.

- Wow.

- Saturday and Sunday.

- And we set the clocks forward, so--

- Yeah.

- --you're running on--

- Zombie mode.

- There we go.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

- So let's get her on a show.

- Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

- Well, we'll get back to what you've been playing.

- Yes.

- But clearly, you've been busy and having a life. Meanwhile, I see you're online every time I'm online. So, Ethan, welcome to-- welcome back to the show.

- Yeah. Thanks for having me.

- Three weeks in a row, I want to say?

- Two weeks in a row. There was one gap, but almost. Close.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh. We're so close. So close.

- Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But you brought controllers last week.

- That's right.

- So that set you back at least one extra week.

- Yeah.

- I was looking through your bag, by the way. There was nothing in it.

- I didn't bring it because I knew you would.

- Yeah.

- You've got to come prepared. In hardware, we know what people want. We know what people are looking for, why we get invited to calls. I get it. But no, thanks for having me back. Hailey, I haven't seen you since-- Disney?

- Disneyland, yeah.

- Yeah. We went to Disney together after the showcase last year, I want to say.

- Yeah.

- And Nicki Minaj showed up, and--

- It was crazy. It was crazy. We rode Teacups together. It was just wonderful.

- Yep.

- But yeah, good to see you again.

- Yeah. Likewise.

- And thanks for having me back.

- All right. So like I said, we have a number of guests on the show today. But before we get into those, we always like to-- there's actually been a lot of play these last several weeks.

- Yeah.

- So who wants to start? Who's been playing what?

- You want to go first?

- You've got a lot.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You set me up.

- You've had a life, and you've been no life-ing.

- Yes. Yes. I have been no life-ing I'm going out of town candidly for a month. And so I'm getting all my games in now because I'm going to be without an Xbox for quite some time.

So yeah. I think last time I was on the show, I was talking up a lot of cozy games. A lot of cooperative games I've been playing, Dead Island, to Helldivers, to Palea, just some cooperative experiences.

So I've done a complete shift. Finals is in its last few days of the season. The new season drops on Thursday, I believe.

And you also have Hunt Showdown, which is a game I've played a ton of with their Desolations Wake event happening. So I dove back into PvP with my friends. I've been playing a lot. Had to finish the battle pass in Finals. For folks that haven't played, you've got to check it out. It is--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is it a free to play game?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Free to play.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I got into it a couple weeks ago, and-- really cool presentation.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And so which grabbed you about The Finals?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I think it's got a lot of mechanics from a lot of games I like. It's got mobility like Titanfall and APEX. It's got destructible environments like Battlefield. It's got gamified modes. So it's not just Deathmatch and who can kill who. It's like you actually have objectives.

And it's all told through the story and lens of a show. So you have a fake crowd that's cheering. You have announcers that are very over-the-top and silly, but really just a lot of fun. The dialogue is just great.

And I actually believe the two announcers are AI. So there's-- they pump new lines into the game all the time. So you don't always know what they're going to say. And that keeps it fresh to me.

And so the story incorporates the AI aspects. There's hacking happening. If anyone watched the teaser for the new trailer, all the new abilities and stuff have to do with glitching the game.

So you can actually make walls disappear and shoot through them. You can throw grenades that teleport people. But they have these really cool animations. It's just great game design. It's just a really fun game.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you get to choose different types, like-- it almost reminds me of the old NES hockey if you go way back. You can pick really fast, little slender people, or bulky--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Bulky, heavy-- yeah, yeah. You have your tanks. You have your DPS.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thicc boys.

- Yeah, thicc boys. Exactly. Yeah, totally.

- Extra C's.

[LAUGHTER]

- Exactly. And so you can fit your play style. And it's three players, so it's a great team-based game. It's not just, run and shoot.

You have a lot to do. There's a lot to think about. It's like the first game I was telling you this that's made me feel like an old man.

I'm pretty proud of my gaming prowess. I feel a pretty sweaty gamer, as the kids say. And lately, that game really put me in my place, like, no, I'm 31 now. I'm slowing down.

My reaction speed is slower every year, and it hurts. It honestly hurts me inside. So I'm just getting used to that.

- Your esports career is winding down.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. If I ever have kids, I'm going to be that annoying dad that's like, I could have gone pro.

- You'll be the coach. Yeah.

- Yeah, exactly. And so similarly, and a little-- but similarly, in terms of player base, or, excuse me, team size, another three-player game that my same crew plays is Hunt Showdown, which has been out since 2017. I've got about 1,000 hours in this game. It's a route and--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Casually.

HAILEY GELLER: Casually.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Casually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also-- I don't want to get into it. But this game is amazing.

It's rootin', tootin' cowboy shootin'. It's all 1800s weapons. It's right-- takes place right before World War 1 in the Bayou. And it's like-- imagine a cowboy competitive shooter with zombies.

You're fighting monsters. It's a haunted Louisiana setting. And so you run in. You have to kill the boss. You have to extract the loot. And all the while, there are other players doing the same thing.

- Are there alligators--

- Yes.

- --that you have to watch out for?

- There's an alligator boss, and he's--

- Perfect.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

- The right answer. That was the right answer. Yeah.

- OK. Good. Good. So either way, I've just been trying to clean up a lot of my battle passes before the events end and get all my sweet-looking cosmetics. Because if you don't look good killing people online, are you really playing? You know?

- Some might say no.

- No. Malik and I fight about this all the time, by the way, because he has vanilla skins and everything.

- --basic vanilla, yeah.

- It makes me sick.

- Very, very Malik.

- Yeah.

- So what about you, Hailey?

- Um, I guess my list is not as long as Ethan's, but--

- You've got a lot going on in your life--

- Yeah.

- --outside of games.

- Yeah. What a concept. I don't know.

[LAUGHTER]

I've been playing a little bit of Gears of War, Judgment, I guess, going back in time, some of the OGs with Baird and Cole.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.

HAILEY GELLER: And yeah, I've been playing with some co-workers, just a really fun and entertaining time. Just having the waves of baddies coming for you constantly, I feel like it just gets my heart rate going.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HAILEY GELLER: But yeah, it's been fun to just get back and play Gears again.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's a fun game to get to play games with your co-workers--

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah, yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: --to do a little meeting and just take over a game.

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah. Yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Let's hash this out online.

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah, exactly.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I haven't done that nearly enough, but--

- It's a must.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --we should all be doing that.

- Bring back the play game time. Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I know. Maybe we should do that.

- Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. I'm going to-- this is where I'm just going to awkwardly tell you now what I've been playing.

- Yeah, I want to know.

- Your list, yeah.

- I do want to know. I do want to know.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So a lot of people have been talking about Dragon's Dogma. Actually, as we're-- Dragon's Dogma II, I should say. As we're filming this, I know people are starting to get a hold of review copies, and--

But the preview beat of that, as we call it in the industry, where people got to play it before they got to review it-- headlines were like, this is maybe Game of the Decade. This might be an all-timer. So my hype levels are like-- [VOCALIZES] and they released a character creator.

So you can now just search for "Dragon's Dogma II character creator demo." It's a free download. And it's a really-- there's some really good stuff.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I've seen the posts online.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can make everything. I've seen everything from Walter White to Pikachu.

- Yes.

- Guess which one was scarier, by the way?

- Pikachu?

- By a long shot, OK?

[LAUGHTER]

It was nightmare fuel.

- Yeah.

- But seeing some really cool stuff that people are able to do with this. So I went and I made my main character, and I made my pawn, which is this-- someone who will escort you with-- throughout the game. And at least in the first one, you were able to get multiple pawns.

So it's like, OK, I'm going to be someone who's going to want to maybe stay back. So I made someone who is tougher and shielder. You can always change this stuff later.

But it was really-- that got me just hyped just making my character. I can't wait to get out there with these characters. Then I happened to just look and notice that Dragon's Dogma the original, Dark Arisen, which was an updated version with DLC and just tons and tons of content, was on sale for $4.85.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh. That's a must.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Had to do it. So I impulse-bought that and jumped in because I've never really played. So if you've never played the original--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's unforgiven.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --of Dragon's Dogma-- it's back to 360 era. It's probably well over a decade old. And there's certain mechanics that actually hold up really well. There's certain things where you look back and go, yeah, this is a game that came out in 2010, or something like that.

But just to get a feel for what the game is like, and the lore, and how it feels, and this whole thing about climbing onto monsters, and almost sort of Shadow of the Colossus situation, and--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Cinematic.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. And it just was frenetic, but really fun. And so suffice to say, I'm incredibly hyped for Dragon Dogma II.

- This is the game that's limited fast travel. There's not quest markers. There's limited quest markers. It's very-- it's not holding your hand.

- So the world feels really lived-in and huge, by the way. Even the map looks a hand-drawn map. And you don't have icons everywhere. And you're like, let me go back. Oh, this road is going to go over here.

But then you're constantly like, well, what's that? And it brought me back to that era of gaming where you're like-- curiosity drives you forward. And hearing the interviews for Dragon's Dogma II with the dev team saying, our world is going to be so dense and have so much stuff to do. You're not going to want to fast-travel--

- Yeah.

- I think that-- I think I read that, at certain points, you can in some way. You can drop a crystal. Whatever. I'm not worried about that now.

But I love what they're saying about how just being in that world will be fun. The world is not going to be just-- they say, driving through LA, sometimes it's really interesting spots separated by strip malls. And it's just like you're just going from interesting place to interesting place. But that part in the middle should be really fun. And so--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's awesome.

- Yeah. So we'll be playing that. Actually, it comes out next week-- end of next week. So--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right when I go out of town.

- Yeah.

HAILEY GELLER: None for you.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Tragic.

- Same, because I'll be out for GDC.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, man.

- But very much looking forward to getting into that. I'd imagine we'll be talking about that in future weeks. So one of the games that might be Game of the Year contender, from what we're hearing-- I also played the worst game of all time.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: The worst? You think it's the worst? Let's hear it.

HAILEY GELLER: Dun, dun, dun, dun.

- I don't know if it's canon for the worst game of all time, but I was just looking at some of the games that were coming out on ID@Xbox, indie games. And there was something, and it was just the key art, hopefully they're putting it up here, for a game called Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, Definitive Edition.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I love that there's a definitive edition of this game.

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah. What makes the end?

- With more ties.

- So I knew nothing about this. And I just downloaded it just based purely on how just ridiculous this looked. And it turns out-- so Limited Run Games published this. Now, Limited Run Games-- you might know they make boxed copies of games that don't always come in boxes. And they're Game Collector's best friend.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's awesome.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So they do a lot of cool stuff like that. What they ended up doing is packaging up this game, but then essentially making a documentary around it. So I don't know if you've played the special version of Karotica, Karateka, which was a-- it came out last year.

It was a really old-school PC game that I played when I was 5. And it was a forerunner to a lot of action platforming games. And it told the story of Jordan Mechner, who created the game, I want to say, probably single-handedly because that happened a lot back in the day. And it was a documentary and a game at the same time.

This has a lot of the same thing, except at the beginning, when you first load it, it looks like Windows 3.1 or something, super old-school Windows, which was very charming. And then they have a six-minute thing where they're like, why did we make-- why are we doing this? Why are we remaking this game? This was one of the worst games ever.

And they get into the importance. Nobody doubts that we should preserve classic games that are-- that everyone knows and loves and you can go back and play. If I want to go play Super Mario Brothers, there's a way to do it. It's not the hardest thing to do.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But there's value in preserving bad games, too, because they remind people of what the--

HAILEY GELLER: The journey. Yeah.

- --industry was like at the time. yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: 100%.

- How did you get to here from there? That being said, I'd never seen this game. It had come out on the 3DO, which--

- Oh, wow.

- OK-- yeah. So--

- What's that?

- OK. "What's that?" is the right question.

- [LAUGHS]

- So I'm sure you've heard of Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo because those were the dominant players of the early '90s. But then before games had disks, there was-- there were a few systems like 3DO, Jaguar, Philips CD-I that were very expensive and-- but had disks. They took a DVD 1. They might have taken laser disks. I can't even remember.

- Oh, my--

- And then they were experimenting with where gaming would be going. None of them was all that successful. But I think they did influence even to where we're at now.

And this was one of those games. And it's effectively a PowerPoint with voiceover. And you can choose certain things, but it's all photos. The story, the acting-- none of it is good. None of it is good. But--

- You're not selling it. [LAUGHS]

- I'm like, I-- there's going to be people who are going to be like, what? And there's going to be people like, it's so bad. It's good.

- Yeah.

- This is maybe-- it's so bad that it went past good and back to bad again. But at the same time, I'm glad it exists.

- Yeah.

- It gives you a warning right off the bat. It's like, the things that are talked about in this game-- this game could never be made now. It's wholly inappropriate. But again, it reminds people of where-- You go back and watch movies, especially comedies, from the '80s and '90s-- you're like, no. You can't say any of these anymore.

- Yeah. Right, right. It's a time capsule. It's very of the time--

- Exactly.

- --of the era.

- And so they're pretty upfront about that. So anyway, it's just cool to poke around that for an hour.

- Check it out.

- The game is not-- calling it a game is even kind of-- it's high praise, I would say. But it's interesting. So I want to just give a shoutout to the folks at Limited Run Games for taking this and keeping this thing alive.

- Yeah.

- And I think for certain folks, they even talked to John Linneman, who's from Eurogamer, and why he thinks this is important. So anyway, interesting stuff. And I played it.

- Amazing.

- Nice.

- And now it will-- and there it will stay.

- Go back in the capsule.

- Yeah, yeah. Did you get a physical copy?

- I don't know if they made a physical copy.

- Oh, OK. OK.

- We'll get it for you. Yeah.

- We'll make one.

- That's OK. That's OK.

- You want to frame it?

- Yeah. It'd be cute.

- People walk in like, oh, what is this?

- I'll put it next to my Zune, which I actually do have one of those. So--

- I also have one, too.

- OK. All right. Well, that's for our Zunecast. We'll talk about that on the next episode.

- Next time. Yeah.

- I feel like that's a popular white elephant gift, by the way, at Microsoft, is a Zune.

- Yeah. Actually, I did-- it was a char-- I made a donation to get-- anyways. It's a whole thing.

- [LAUGHS]

- Anyway.

- That's funny.

- So let's talk about games people are actually playing because there's been a significant amount of updates to a number of big games that millions of people play. And one of them that I thought was really interesting was Forza Motorsport has an update number 6. And this addresses, well, a couple of different things. One, there's this thing called the Combustion Tour--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Ooh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --which there's a series of races with four-cylinder, six-cylinder, eight-cylinder, V10 vehicles. And then you can earn really awesome supercars like the Pagani Zonda. And so there's some cool stuff there.

But they made some big changes to the progression mechanics. And ultimately, it will allow more freedom for people that are playing to upgrade their cars in the way that they want to. It takes away some of the level requirements for what you can upgrade when. You can even cash in some of your credits into the car credits for that.

Anyway, tons of stuff over on forzamotorsport.net. There was a great five-, six-minute video that talked about it. But if that was something you've been looking for, the team at Turn 10 has listened, and it's there, along with, again, more cars and more races to do. Something that really-- yeah, go on.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No, no. Please. I'm excited for the next one. I'm excited.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK. Well, do you want to take it?

- Sure. Sure. Oh my gosh. Cowboy Bebop and Overwatch are having a crossover this week.

I think the skins come out tomorrow. Are we fans here? Cowboy Bebop fans? Overwatch fans?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Overwatch fan.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And I just loved seeing how excited people were about this.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, absolutely. It's a great anime. If you haven't watched Cowboy Bebop, first off, turn off the show-- or, finish this podcast. Excuse me. Sorry, producers.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We need the minutes. Yes.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And then after this, immediately check out Cowboy Bebop because it is such a unique anime in that the music choices are very stylistically different than a lot of anime, things like that. It's very much in its own world in terms of artistic style, which is awesome. But it's essentially a space--

He's a space cowboy, or space detective, solving crimes. And that's the gist. And someone online is going to be like, well, actually-- but that is the gist.

Anyway, the skins are coming to Overwatch. If you're a fan of the show, we've got-- Spike Spiegel is the Cassidy skin. Faye Valentine is going to be on Ashe. I'm picking up that skin, absolutely. Ashe is my favorite character in the game. So I'm going to be picking up that skin.

You also have a few others, right? Jet-black Malga, which is going to be cool. Malga is one of the newest tanks and getting a lot of play right now. So I'm sure we're going to see that skin plenty.

Sombra gets the Ed skin, which is also very cool. And then you also have-- I think there's one more that, if I'm not mistaken, is the free skin. That's going to be Iney the wrecking ball, which-- Ine is the dog, which-- so obviously, wrecking ball, if you don't know, is--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The fit fix.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes. Yeah. And wrecking ball is a hamster. So that might be my favorite skin. I don't want to jump out. I'm looking at pictures right now, and I think Ine is my favorite.

- Oh, that's cute.

- So cute. Yeah. So good. So log in to Overwatch to complete challenges and you'll get the Ine wrecking ball skin.

I believe all the others are available for purchase. That's going to be coming out tomorrow-- or, excuse me, when this records-- so it'll be coming out behind us one day, so the day after, right? This airs on Thursdays.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It does.

- Yeah. Look at that. I can do days.

- We just saved you two days of waiting.

- Yeah.

- Two sleeps.

- There we go. There we go. This is great. I wish it was Thursday today. I'm not stoked about the conversation I have to have with my wife that I'm going to be buying every single one of these skins. But that's a conversation for--

- Post-vacation.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Yeah exactly. We don't have to worry about that today.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So our good friends at Blizzard worked with us on an article on Xbox Wire, that's news.xbox.com. And they actually showed how they made the art and how they collabed here. So if you're into Cowboy Bebop as much as you are Overwatch, this is probably going to be the thing for you. I love a good crossover.

- Absolutely.

- Also, I want to say Ghostbusters and Destiny had a crossover announced this week.

- Ooh. I didn't see that.

- I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure I didn't make that up.

- Let me just check that.

- We'll edit it out if I did. But I'm pretty sure I saw that.

- That's more money to spend on cosmetics, ladies and gentlemen.

- There you go. We're looking out for you. While you're looking that up, we're going to get into some of our interviews.

We actually have a lot going on. I'm heading out this weekend to San Francisco for GDC. That's the Game Developers Conference. We always have a presence there, in terms of showing off or introducing the world, I think, to a lot of indie games.

First time people got to play Cuphead, if you remember an infamous demo of Cuphead back a long time ago. That happened at GDC. So Tina is going to be speaking with Lori Wright, who leads Partnerships and Business Development here at Xbox, talking about what Xbox is bringing to GDC this year.

Then, and I hope you don't take offense, I'm going to kick y'all off the sofa because Kiki Wolfkill is going to be coming here to talk about Halo, season 2 series and episode 4, "The Fall of Reach," but all the way through the episodes that took place today, actually. So if you're not-- you're going to want to get caught up, I would say, on episode 7.

HAILEY GELLER: Episode 6?

- Well, today is episode 7.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- And it's out now.

- Oh. Oh. Yeah.

- Wow. So pause this--

- We're time-traveling here.

- Again.

- Yeah.

- Pause this. Watch the Halo episode. Finish this with the interview, and then watch Cowboy Bebop. That's--

- Yeah, all 400 episodes, or how many episodes of that.

- Exactly. Just a quick Thursday.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And then come back to the end of the show. We're going to have Malik meeting with Ramone Russell, who is part of Sony San Diego, the people that make MLB The Show 24. We've had him on every year since MLB has come to Xbox and come to Game Pass, as it is once again this year. So let's send it over to Tina with Lori Wright.

- We've got a special interview segment with Xbox's CVP of Gaming Partnerships and Business Development, Lori Wright. I don't think you've been on the podcast before, so I'd love to first introduce you to our audience. There's a lot of slices of Xbox in the business. "Business" is literally in your title right there. So I'd love for you to talk about what it is that you do at Xbox, a little bit about your journey. What does all of those incredible words in your title mean in practice?

- Well, I would be delighted to try and tell you all the fun aspects of my job. It really is a super special role that I feel really privileged to have. There's a phenomenal that, of course, is behind the scenes and out on the front lines as well doing so much of the great work.

So what it means is-- we have our Gaming Partnerships and Business Development Organization. And this you can think of is all the great games that you play on Xbox. Our team goes out and brings those games onto the Xbox platform.

And then my team is also responsible for all the places that you get to play it. So if you're playing on a Smart TV with Samsung today or screens of all sizes, we work across all of our partners to make sure that you can play Xbox in as many places as possible. I really do thinking about, well, what's the essence of all of it?

And it really always comes down to the games. The games are just so central. And so the team's mission is about, how are we empowering all creators to, and this is creators large and small, to build for Xbox and to bring their games into our world?

And for me, I think this is the passion that comes through in these roles. And we get to just see the energy and the creative spirit for how all of these games are getting made and the audience that we get to help the games reach. And I think just in what it means throughout my own career journey and history-- just loving the art form of entertainment, and seeing the passion, again, in the gaming community, and things that these creators are working on and love so deeply, and being able to bring that art form to the world is really special. So that's a bit about what the team does.

- Oh, just a little bit. Not the majority of what we do and what our players appreciate us for. And I imagine we've been keeping you pretty busy with all of that under your remit. So with all that you've been working across, I'm sure that the last three months have felt really jam-packed.

I still stutter in my own head that it's been three months since the year kicked off. Literally last week on the podcast, I'm pretty sure that I said it was coming up to February 14. And no one corrected me, so I'm guessing that everyone is in the same mental capacity as I am.

But it is really because a lot has happened. And we have GDC coming up, so more is about to happen. And I want to talk about GDC as well.

But let's just look back at the last three months because I'm really curious, what about the last three months in this year 2024 so far has stood out for you?

- Oh, it has been an action-packed year so far.

- [LAUGHS]

- I get a little bit lost in the time warp. One highlight I will say, and surprise, was Pal World. It's one of these games that took the world by storm with its early access and its game preview release. And it's still one of the most-played games right now.

And we knew working with the Pocket Pair team previously and just how awesome of a game Craftopia was that we had high expectations. But I didn't know-- we couldn't have predicted just how big Pal World would have been at launch. So that was a really-- a real highlight.

Beyond that, I would say that, just looking back more recent times, we had the business podcast that was done a few weeks back during the Dice time frame. And we got to lay out the future of Xbox and how we plan to bring Xbox to even more screens and devices. And so Tina, you obviously hosted that and played an instrumental role in it. But for anyone out there that didn't watch it, I would encourage just going out and taking a look because there's some really good information in that as well. That was a real highlight.

And then most recently is our Xbox Partner Preview. We just had that, and being able to see all the great games and getting the world to be able to see what's coming. Just a special moment. So a lot going on.

- Yes, very much so. And I'm so delighted that I got to participate in even just a slice of any of that. It's been a busy year for myself as well on the show's front. We had Developer Direct in January.

I got to fly out to Japan to work with Square Enix on their segment. That was such an incredible experience. They were so hospitable. And just so fun to be behind the scenes and working so closely with these studios and really learning from them as well.

And as you mentioned, we had our second-ever Partner Preview just last week as we're recording this. Now, I don't want to put you too much on the spot since I worked on both those shows. But on a scale of 10 to 10, how much did you love my shows? [LAUGHS]

- I love it.

- [LAUGHS] Perfect. You broke the scale.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. It was so fun to put those together. But were there any highlights from Partner Preview? Obviously, we get such a good opportunity to talk to so many different studios from so many places around the world, so many different genres. That's really a lot of what we think about when we put that show together, is, there's something for everyone. If you like the Monster Jam, the racing trucks and pulling off wheelies, or if you just want to play an instrumental flute and attract a bunch of animals into your little pack, there's really such a depth and range there.

- Yes. And that is-- just seeing the depth and the breadth of the games that are shown, I am struggling to pick a favorite. I think there were, what, 14 games that were highlighted.

And I think it's really about our opportunity to give creators another stage to showcase their games. And in coming back to this, games is what it's all about. And in Partner Preview, we get to create this really special forum for these games to be seen.

And I think things like Kunitsu-Gami and Tales of Kenzera-- those were fantastic. And looking-- thinking about the Ukraine teams with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy or Sinking City 2, also just really special moments. And the feedback that we receive from players, from our partners-- the show is just-- it's really amazing and special. So I can't pick a favorite. But there are some standouts.

- They're all our children. We can't pick a favorite. I feel the same way. And I'm so glad to see the players get introduced to games that they've been waiting for.

I think Sinking City 2 was this long-awaited sequel, which it's really exciting to be the platform to get to announce that. And it's really fun to see people discovering games that they might not have otherwise. There's so many great creators out there. And it's another opportunity coming up to get to see them in-person with GDC.

So I promised we would talk about GDC. I know we're both going. It's obviously a very different-- there's so many conferences across the year in the industry. And it's unique in the sense of it's this networking opportunity for a lot of people, a learning opportunity.

There's a lot of panels. I love going to the panels, learning about older games, newer games. Even as someone who's not a developer herself, it's so insightful and interesting. And meeting people in that kind of setting is always really re-energizing, I would say, as well.

But I'm curious what your perspective is on GDC. And obviously, your role at GDC, I'm sure, is very different than just going and attending the panels and getting to have that opportunity. And also, I wanted to ask you what Xbox is doing at GDC because I know there's a lot going on.

- Yeah. Well, it's right around the corner. We start Monday morning, bright and early. And as many of you know, GDC is one of the biggest gaming conferences in the world, and particularly for game developers.

It is an important moment for us to meet with our partners and to meet with creators. And I'll call it an ecosystem of all of the lifeblood that comes together in San Francisco next week all around the spirit of gaming. And it is where we connect with our partners to share updates where we are going with our Xbox vision, to hear from partners on what they're seeing and what they need as well. And so these are just moments for us to really get connected and see a lot of partners in a short period of time, and to pick up on some of the themes, and to get feedback in different areas.

So for me, it's an incredibly busy week night and day, trying to see as many partners as possible. We do that with our very largest publishing partners all the way down to the smallest indie developers who are bringing their games to Xbox for the first time. So another area where we really do just cover a lot of ground.

Another thing that's special about GDC this year is it's the first time we're coming together across Activision, Blizzard, King, Xbox, and Bethesda and showing up all in unison together. And through that, I think we're doing something like 30 talks, where we'll get out and have the ability to share how we're powering games and how we're empowering creators. Our ID@Xbox Program is so impactful across the indie community.

And I think we're showing off 10 games to press, some of them for the very first time, from our community. So much is going on, everything from the partner meetings, to the industry nights, to just the hallway networking conversations. So lots planned.

- Yeah. It's always a packed schedule. And I think everyone comes home both refreshed and exhausted somehow because we get to have all these wonderful conversations and learn about so many new things from each other. But I'm curious. Are there any specific games or maybe partners that you're particularly excited about seeing when you're at GDC next week?

- Well, much like, I think, earlier question on-- we cover so many partners that it really is hard to say, I'm really looking forward to seeing this partner, because that list would be so long.

- Mhm.

- And it's back to that being able to meet all the creators of all types. I think our ID@Xbox showcase will be really special. We'll get to see some of the latest titles that are coming through our developer acceleration program that they'll be showing off, and these are games like SOPA from StudioBando in Colombia.

And we're really excited. This is a title that will be coming to Game Pass. And it came through our Developer Acceleration Program. So again, it's another area where there's just-- there's so much goodness.

- I do love that. I was reviewing some of our ID@Xbox titles. Of course, one of them is the Sinking City 2. So that's great that that team out of Ukraine is having an opportunity at GDC to show more.

For viewers that might not know, it's this Lovecraftian world, very horror-esque game. I think you're going to find out what's actually happening to the sinking city, which is exciting. Just from my own reading up on what we're going to be showing as well, we've got Dungeons of Hinterburg, an action RPG that we announced at last year's showcase.

That team's from Austria. I love seeing just the diversity of genre, the diversity of teams. There's such a breadth there. And there was--

You mentioned SOPA already, which I love. It sounds so intriguing because it's basically a parallel universe game, and you're-- you get sucked in. You're trying to get ingredients for your grandmother's soup. That's "sopa" in Spanish. And you're getting sucked into another realm and retracing the steps of a traveler before you.

And then another-- a time loop game called Echo Weaver sounded really interesting to me, too. You're uncovering a mystery as you're going through these time loops. The team apparently-- US-based team calls it "metroid brania." So I'm very intrigued by that. Any game that's coming up with a new genre on its own I love to hear.

But you mentioned the Developer Acceleration Program. Obviously, some of these games have been participating in that. And I love that.

I'd love to talk about that a little bit more. That was announced formally at last year's GDC. So we're coming up on the anniversary of that.

And my amazing friend and colleague Annette Gonzalez was also up on stage with James Lewis to talk about it even further on stage at the Independent Games Festival at GDC last year. It was really incredible to see all of those reactions and for our teams to get a chance to really stand up for these studios and give them these really great opportunities. So can you talk a little bit about what DAP, as we like to say internally does, and why the work is so meaningful, both for players and for the developers?

- Tina, you just gave me chills even referencing back to that moment.

- Right? I love it. Yeah.

- Such a highlight moment, and with them on stage and announcing DAP for the first time-- and it was how they inspired the world through their storytelling, as the authors and the brilliant people who came up with the program, who run the program every day, and the heart and soul that they put into it. And it is really our way to make sure that we are bringing underrepresented developers into the Xbox Community and making sure that their titles have an audience and can be seen. And this is just-- it's an incredible, incredible effort.

I think we've released 50 games through the DAP program. And that's even more remarkable, given it has just been a year. So considering all that this team is doing, I think it's also just getting started. It has so much potential to continue to grow its reach. And it's this very, very special thing that we have and do. And it really comes down to the people who are behind it.

- Yeah. Agreed that it's so special. It's special for me as well. I think it's such a great program because it's this lightning rod for talent, too. And giving talent this opportunity is so meaningful.

And obviously, that translates for the players because then they get to experience the incredible talent from these team members. We actually-- one of my favorite games of last year was El Paso, Elsewhere. And that was a game that came through our DAP program.

And I loved it so much, and I love the developer so much, Xalavier Nelson, Jr. And I love his voice so much. He does the narration in the game. He sings and raps in the game.

I loved it so much. We actually had his voice do the VO narration for our last Xbox Partner Preview. And I was excited that some people actually noticed. Like, wait, is that Xalavier? And it's just so fun to participate with the community in that way and be part of bringing them these new experiences, these new developers, and seeing those devs go on to do incredible other things and being-- even myself, being a small slice of any amount of support to that is really meaningful as well. And I imagine you feel very similarly.

LORI WRIGHT: I do. Even games like Venba, and Space for the Unbound, and so many others that have come through this, in addition to El Paso, Elsewhere, it's just a-- it's a special program.

- Such a great lineup. Well, I know we don't have too much more of your time, so I wanted to ask you just a couple more questions. Obviously, we've talked a lot about GDC. But what's the next big thing for you after that? I know we've got a busy year, even beyond just the three months where we've been busy already.

- Yeah. It's a little mind-boggling to think about it. I typically time-slice in to get through next week and then all the stuff that's around the corner. But the team is working really, really hard right now on our June, our summer showcase.

And we can't wait to show the fans everything that we're cooking behind the scenes to reveal at summer showcase. And then, of course, we'll be going around the world, as we do all throughout the year, and visiting our partners. We have big moments like Gamescom, where-- in this moment, it's a bit like GDC, where you get to see a lot of people in one place and time. We have Tokyo Game Show that happens right after that. But then in between, we're just out on visits scouting the world, talking to our partners, and preparing for all the stuff that's exciting to come in the future.

- Well, I'm very grateful for that because you get to bring in so much content that I get to also help share through our shows. So always makes my job that much more fun. But lastly, since this is The Official Xbox Podcast, and we always like to talk about what we've been playing these days, I'd love to ask you that very same question.

- Ooh. Well, this one-- I go back to again that is my ultimate zen game. Anytime things get a little bit stressful or I just want to immerse in something special, I always go back to Tetris Effect. It's just the music, the sound--

TINA AMINI: Yes.

LORI WRIGHT: --the way that it's meditative I just-- I have loved over time. Fun, recent stuff-- I really got into Drive To Survive, the Netflix series, over the holidays. And so started playing Forza Motorsport when that launched, and then F1 and some of the racing games. And those are incredibly fun to play year-round. I also--

One of the special things we have coming up, too, is with Fallout. So I've been going back to our Fallout games. But we have a Fallout TV show that will be hitting, this series I'm sure many of you have heard about, that's right around the corner here in a few weeks.

And then when I think about-- not what I'm playing, but what I'm really looking forward to playing is Hades II. The Supergiant team is just amazing. And what they do with their craft is really special and beautiful. So I'm looking forward to that.

- So much good stuff. And this is why backlogs exist. And we can all relate to the conundrum.

But I love that you're preparing for the Fallout show by playing the Fallout games. I feel like I've got to do the same, but I barely have time. So I'd better hustle on that.

But it was so amazing to have you on the podcast, really special because this is your first time on the show. And really great to introduce you to our podcast community. So thank you again for coming by.

- Thank you for having me. And I look forward to seeing you next week.

- Yeah, I look forward to seeing you next week, too. And back to you guys in the studio.

- OK, we are back on the set. I've been looking forward to this for a couple of months now, ever since the start of Halo, season 2. And, well, we've got Kiki Wolfkill joining us. She is the Head of IP Expansion here at Xbox and very intimately involved in the Halo TV series. Could you tell me what you do, besides, well, we were talking off set, racing around Covenant ships and going off to exotic locations?

- Yeah. So I have been an EP on Halo season 1 and 2. I spent about 10 years trying to get the show going, and really have been-- we have a new showrunner for season 2. But worked with the showrunners, directors, all of the department heads, and was the producer on set day-to-day. So was there for every minute, from conception, up until-- we literally just finished and delivered the last episode of season 2, which feels surreal to have done.

- So let's talk about season 2. It's a critical success, as our PR guy loves to remind us. 94 on the Tomato Meter. Really a big tonal change.

It's been darker. It's been more impactful. There's been some serious stuff going on. So what are your takeaways from making season 2, and what were the goals that you had coming into it?

- Yeah. Making the scale of show is such an interesting challenge because there's so many stakeholders. And on the licensing side, as the IP holder, it's an interesting role to be in because you don't necessarily own every decision. But you certainly get to try and influence every decision.

And we were lucky both on season 1 and season 2 to work with amazing creative teams. But I think what we see with season 2 is we really saw the ability to focus on the creative in a way that was harder on season 1. Because season 1 was, how do we make this scale of show?

How do we build these huge sets in Budapest? How do we express the world? And at the same time, it all comes from the script.

And I think with season 2 and bringing on David Weiners, our new showrunner, we were able to really get to a story that felt a little bit closer to the heart of Halo. And so all of the production learnings from season 1-- from the very beginning of season 2, and actually, this started in season 1, we knew we wanted to be grittier. We wanted to be tonally closer to how--

I always use the Halo 3, ODST commercial as a good bar, and it was something that I showed David really early on, as, this is an aspect of Halo. And there's so many. But this is something we really want to lean into.

And his head was already there. So it was a perfect alignment. But yeah, season 2, we were able to just creatively focus and hit on all the things that may have been aspirations in season 1. But ultimately, the nitty-gritty of making the show was the biggest focus in 1.

- So I want to talk to you a little bit about the making of and fun stories from the set, because the stuff is-- personally, I find it very interesting. But last night, season-- or episode 7 dropped. There's actually just a ton to talk about. So I'll warn you. We're going into some spoiler territory here.

If you haven't watched-- if you're not caught-up right now, maybe skip ahead 10 minutes. Because I want to get into a little bit of it because it has been an absolute sprint from the-- episode 4, which is where Reach got glassed. And many things happened, including some meaningful deaths that hit me right here with--

KIKI KILLWOLF: Right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --maybe a needler to the chest.

KIKI KILLWOLF: [LAUGHS]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And now we're getting into some really interesting things with the forerunners, and just even where everyone-- shifting alliances. People that you thought might want to kill each other are now helping each other live, and escape, and find their family. So can you just talk to us about-- from the fall of Reach into where we're at now, where it's-- again, spoiler alert. Last night's episode ended with Master Chief getting a glimpse of the Ring for the first time in IRL. How we got there, and what you were aiming to do in these few episodes?

- One of the things that-- why we wanted to do television is we get to explore some themes that we hit on through the games, and certainly hit on more deeply in the books. But we get to explore it even more deeply in the show. And so the battle for Reach is still going on. As we know from canon, that actually is a very extended battle.

And as much as we would have loved to spend four episodes on it, we couldn't afford to. [LAUGHS] And B, we wanted to explore more than just the battle. We wanted to explore, what is the impact on everyone of such a momentous event for humanity at both that humanity level and the personal level? And what is the impact of losing your brother and your family in Vannak?

What is the impact on someone like Riz? For me, her decision in episode 5 is one of the most poignant moments in the season. And at the same time, how do we also explore all of the political intrigue that has existed in Halo? The Ackerson-Halsey dynamic, Parangosky's role, that the UNSC knew what was going to happen on Reach, all of those things are things we got to dig into a little bit more.

So I think what you see are-- we needed the moment on Reach to help motivate all of these other storylines. And it was an amazing episode and an event to chronicle. But that's really the thing that kicks off that race to the Ring because this is humanity on its last leg.

And I think one of the other things that's always intriguing about that is, when there is this existential crisis, and I think this is a theme we can relate to even today, the things that are happening in the background, and the politics-- and it's like, wait. You have to focus on saving humanity, not the political turmoil and-- so that anxiety that brings up and that tension is something we also wanted. But really, what we're seeing coming out of episode 4 and into 5, 6, 7 is everyone's coming together.

The race to the Ring is accelerating. As you said, we finally get to see it in real life. And so you see all of this coming together. And for Chief in particular, he is reunited with the armor. And what does that mean?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. I wanted to talk about that. The stakes felt so much higher on Reach and in a number of encounters that happened afterwards because his armor has been secreted away, and he's got to lead without that. And so was it a creative risk to take Chief out of the armor for the better part of three episodes?

- Yeah. I will say, that was something we talked a lot about. And I had a lot of concern around the Spartans, and Chief in particular, being out of the armor for so long. That said, part of what's so important to tell in this season is, what is John's relationship to the Master Chief?

And in some ways, the armor is a representation of the Master Chief. And so what I think we've seen up through episode 7 is John reconciling who is the Master Chief to him. We understand who it is to the UNSC. We now understand what it is to Ackerson.

And what we wanted was for John to reclaim that armor and reclaim who the Master Chief is because the Master Chief is John. But we see some different perspectives on that. And so while it felt risky to keep the armor off-- and there are so many tactical challenges in going into battle with Sang Healy without armor.

And there's that part of you that just wants to see them kick ass in their armor. On the flip side, I loved seeing them kick ass without their armor because you forget how extraordinary they are outside of the armor with the augmented bodies and decades of warfare. I loved seeing that part of them.

But ultimately, it's about Chief reclaiming who the Master Chief is and reminding us that he is the Master Chief. And so I love that moment of him coming back to his armor. I love that moment of he and Kai in front of Vannak armor. I thought I was done crying about Vannak, but I was not.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

- So yeah, that ultimately was a really important decision. And hopefully for the audience, when we see the armor come back on, it will mean something more.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. You touched on some interesting stuff that you're able to build out in the show, which is-- I'm reminded of this quote. As a sports fan, you're not rooting for players. You're rooting for uniforms, in a way.

And you see all of this propaganda of Chief's armor, the Spartan armor, and, do it for him, and how much that motivates the other rank and file soldiers and Spartans that are out there. And so it was really cool to see that. There was a pretty key moment, I'm a big fan of Kai, but where Kai, in armor, is at odds with John outside of his armor. Can you talk about that scene and the challenges there?

KIKI KILLWOLF: Yeah. I think with that scene, it was interesting because it was such a tough balance between really needing her to put the beatdown on, but also, this is someone she loves. And this is a moment where, again, you're torn between, What is your duty? whether she's been misinformed or not between your duty and your family.

And she still has that sense of duty which, I think, is a Spartan value. And with John, what you see is letting her do it and accepting that-- in some ways, he understands why. And she doesn't want to, but she feels that sense of duty to do it. And I think we needed that moment so that when she understands Ackerson's lies, it hits her in a very different, emotional way. And I hope the audience feels at the end of that scene how she feels about what she's had to do.

- So that was one of the more intense scenes so far this season. Another one that really got my heart literally pumping involves Corporal Perez. So Corporal Perez is someone that I thought might just be a throwaway character in the first episode of the season, where her platoon is of just plucked out of the fog but manages to survive and has an interaction with Chief, or continue to interact with Chief, but then has joined the Spartan program and is in these training sessions.

And you're seeing from inside the helmet. And I thought those were really intense. Can you talk about those scenes and what you were trying to convey there?

- Yeah. Perez is lost-- has lost everything. She's lost her family, and this is her way to fight back in whatever way that she can, recognizing-- we see she recognizes that there may not be victory. And unlike the Spartan-II's whom we've seen have been trained and have that machine-like understanding of warfare, we wanted to see the war from earlier in the marine view, but later on, how terrifying it is, and also humanize that Spartan-III because we know how Curling. Is going to look at them. We know how Ackerson looks at them.

There's this idea that they're somewhat disposable. There's this idea that we can make huge numbers of Spartan 3's, and they're cheaper, and they're easier, and somewhat fodder. And so we really wanted to have her in that suit so you understood what the cost of that was, and again, that separation of, Who are the people in the suits? versus the powers that be, and people versus weapons, . and that concept.

- Yeah. And you end up having to almost identify with or empathize with both of those different groups, as difficult as that can be--

- That's right.

- --at different times.

- That's right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, let's jump to a different group because there were so many different teams. I do want to touch on them all. When we talked originally, it was like, we're not going be able to do all of them. But now I really want to hear more about it.

It was really interesting seeing the Discord in the ranks with the arbiter, and Makee and his ship full of elites and elite priests that I'm not familiar with seeing. And so it was cool seeing how that came together, but then also where Cortana's in the mix. So can you talk about those scenes and how that's driving towards a climax?

- Yeah. Humanity is not the only race with political conflict. With the Covenant, it's a little bit different because you have the concept of the Great Journey, and the prophets, and Uttam Dharma. The priest really represents that, where they believe getting to the great Ring-- getting to the Halo Ring is going to take them on their journey.

Makee has a different view of that now. And in some ways, knowing that the arbiter's mission is to destroy Chief, her goal is to really try and convince the arbiter that he's the one. He is the one who's to take them on the great journey and get them to the Ring because she just wants to get to the Ring.

And so you see that manipulation. And then you add into the mix Cortana, who's adding another level of manipulation onto Makee, which I love. I love seeing Cortana operating on her own and trying to figure out her way to get back to Chief to help the UNSC. But there is also what we know about Cortana, which is, am I still going to be around? And she cares about that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. Yeah. So very, very interesting across the board. All right, I would love to talk about Soren, and I would love to talk more about Ackerson, who-- I don't like that guy. But also--

[LAUGHTER]

That's his role. But I wanted to just-- because some of the most jaw-dropping and, I'm glad we're getting to this type of stuff, was involving Halsey, Miranda Keyes, and Quanah, who are discovering really interesting forerunner stuff. And this is some of the first time we're seeing some of the things that, I guess, are-- in terms of scenery, things like, oh, I feel like I've walked down corridors like this in the game. So can you talk about those scenes and what they're portending?

KIKI KILLWOLF: Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully, we were able to bring everyone back together on Onyx.

And Halsey and Miranda are reunited, and we find Miranda in this dig site. And it is exciting because we get to see forerunner architecture, things that we've seen forever in games. And that opens up a whole new avenue as we come up--

We're in the penultimate episode, and so we're laying out a little bit of groundwork for our finale. But the forerunner have always been such a source of mystery. And we hit it pretty hard going into 7 in what we see there.

But as we know from canon, the forerunner are a really important part of the Halo Ring. And I'm trying desperately not to spoil anything. What I will say is, I loved getting to the forerunner spaces. We actually see a forerunner form for the first time. And that will just open up a lot of doors.

- One of just the smaller details that I really liked is-- how many times playing a Halo game have you activated a light bridge and gone across it? But seeing this is the first time humanity has seen this technology-- and Halsey had no problem just stepping onto it. And I was like, OK. This is good. But--

KIKI KILLWOLF: I know. I was like, I might have touched it first, but--

- Yeah, yeah.

- [LAUGHS]

- Feet first.

- That scientific curiosity.

- All right, so I think that takes us through to where we are here, with one episode to go. So that'll be showing up next Thursday on Paramount+.

- Yeah.

- Before I let you go-- we were talking a little bit. You were there for every scene that's been shot this season and last season. Any fun stories? I'd have to imagine--

KIKI KILLWOLF: Oh my gosh.

- --you're just seeing, and exploring, and experiencing some really cool stuff.

- So many. I have to say that both season 1 and season 2 were incredible because we had such a talented crew. We had these amazing sets.

And it was super hard work. And so I think when you're in the trenches together, it just builds a level-- we were a family together night and day. We did, I think, across season 2 eight weeks of night shoots. So we were all vampires for a while. So we were very much a work hard, play hard team. [LAUGHS] Lots of set shenanigans, I will say.

- Anything you can share?

- Oh my gosh. I'm trying-- [LAUGHS] I will say-- Otto, our director, probably doesn't even know this. I was 98% of the time at the monitors with our director and showrunner.

But while we were shooting the episode 7 scene with Udo, who chases Makee out of the Covenant ship off the bridge, some of the ADs, and myself, and the stunt coordinator decided that we were going to do a little-- a quick relay race around the Covenant bridge, and touching the artifact was our finish line. So as soon as the camera moved out of that room-- that was the starting gun. And we would do two laps, tag-team around.

- And this is as they're shooting other parts of the scene?

- They're shooting around. So this is why, poor Otto, again, doesn't know. Again, typically I was at the monitor.

But I think we all found ways to blow off steam when we could because we needed to. We were doing 14-hour days, six-, seven-day weeks for a really long time. But it was a-- but it was amazing.

- Sets are really cool. I would love to see some photos of what's real and what isn't.

KIKI KILLWOLF: I will share some behind-the-scenes photos and stories with you--

- Appreciate that.

- --yeah, along the way.

- Well, Kiki Wolfkill, thank you so much for joining again. One more episode to go. So you can check that out on Paramount+ next week. And actually, we're going to go back to another interview with Ramone Russell and our good pal, Malik Prince, to talk about MLB The Show 24.

- What's going on, everybody? It's Malik. And of course, we're well into March. And you know what that means. And no, it's not uncontrollable allergies. I see all of you out there.

It is almost time for the start of baseball. But for players around the world, you know what that means. It's also time for, in my opinion, the greatest baseball game series of all time.

And of course I'm talking about MLB The Show 24, which, yes, for the fourth year in a row, will be launching day and date in Xbox Game Pass. Here to talk with me about the game, it is Ramone Russell, who's the Product Development Communications and Brand Strategist, again, long title, and Ashley Sanders, who's the Content Specialist. Ramone, Ashley, how are you doing today?

- Ashley?

- I'm doing well. Thank you for being here, Malik. I really appreciate it. How are you, Ramone?

- Same. Same. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, of course. This is the second year, actually. Last year, Ramone, you and I spoke about MLB The Show 23. And now we have Ashley here to talk about 24.

So I'm excited to talk about the game. I players around the world, like I mentioned, are excited to get into the game later this month. And so let's kick it off.

I feel like-- and we spoke with, actually, the team at WWE 2K24 last week. And I feel like you all have the same task every single year, which is, deliver something new on a yearly basis for players. And I know, as hard of a task as that is, you all seem to meet that mark every single year. For players who are going to be jumping into the game, can you tell us a little bit about what we can expect that's new?

- A passion for baseball and delivering the best baseball game we can as a development team, working under that circumstance of-- we're a yearly title. And so for us, it's always, how do we continue to improve the game, expand upon the game, and add new things that people might not see in such a short development cycle?

- Yeah. It's one of those things that's impressive. And I know there are a lot of features that you added specifically around immersion and making sure new animations, and celebrations, and a whole bunch of new elements to the game. And so can you talk a little bit about some of those pieces?

- Yeah. Gameplay-wise, we feel really good about the gameplay in MLB The Show. Our gameplay director and that team, they've been doing this for almost 20 years. And we're finally starting to get to a space to where we're really in refinement mode, and especially--

Again, going back, we only have nine months, 10 months to work on the game. So it's about, when we add additional animations, where are we adding them? It needs to make sense. We need to use our resources effectively.

So it's about fielders being able to attack the ball better when the ball gets checked up. It's about runners on base and having a good cat-and-mouse game. Because we never want the end user to feel like the game is taking over control and something bad or good is happening to them that they didn't have control in.

And so that's what the gameplay team focused on this year, was defense, with the bigger bases being implemented. One of the complaints that we heard was, balls at the wall are just leading to too many runners taking too many bases. So the team spent a lot of time adding new animations and a lot of new AI logic to really revamp balls at the wall and how you can hold runners on a lot better than you could last year in this year's game.

- Well, excited to get on the field and check out those new improvements. But I want to go back to something we talked about a little bit last year, which was this new addition to Storylines, which was around the Negro League. And I think at the time last year when it was implemented into the game, when you all really took the time to put it in the game, not only was the idea behind telling these stories from-- as Bob Kendrick, who returns again this year, said, it was from a league that was built out of necessity. It was great to tell the story.

But I think what was really impressive was how you all built it and the level to-- the level of presentation. And it's really built as a mini-documentary because it really has this feeling of polish, and it goes through and gives lots of reverence to each player featured. So now this year, returning with-- at launch, four new players with more to come down the line, why was it so important to revisit this and tell new stories? And how difficult was it picking those stories?

- Ooh. Difficult? There's no right answer. Baseball has such a rich history, and we've never really dived into that rich history. And when we decided we wanted to add Negro Leagues players into the game, it was a match made in heaven.

Like, hey, here's an opportunity to dig into this rich history of baseball. It probably makes sense for us to start with the Negro Leagues because it's such an important part of baseball and American history that not a lot of people know about, especially playing video games. We know the audience may be a little bit younger.

And so like you said, Storylines is a playable micro-documentary. And it gave us an opportunity to educate, enlighten, and inspire, and teach an entirely new audience in a participatory medium some stories that they've never heard before about some of the baddest men and women who've ever played the game of baseball.

MALIK PRINCE: 100%. And you mentioned women, because Toni Stone is in the game, one of the first women to play in a men's baseball league. Ashley, as the content specialist, what all goes into bringing these stories to life?

- Yeah. It's exciting. What we do is we use moments to have people play through this. We're able to recreate and re-experience what these players went through in their timeline.

Of course, because of different dates that these are occurring, we don't always have the most accurate information. So we do take a little bit of creative liberty to make these come to life and have that historic relevance to these moments. So our fans of Diamond Dynasty, they understand moments. They play it almost every day. Now we have a new immersive experience in Storylines where you play through the moment. You see Bob Kendrick storytelling or Derek Jeter storytelling, and you're able to have that full-picture playing experience.

- Love that. And I mentioned it a little bit at the beginning of this question, but it's-- this is not-- this is just the beginning. There's more content coming, Ashley, in both April and May, right?

- Absolutely. Yes. This is only the beginning. We'll see the first chapter or first few players of the Negro Leagues. And then in a couple of weeks, we'll see a few more. And then in a couple of weeks, we'll see the last couple.

- Ah, giving players what they want, more stories and amazing moments. And again, going back to teaching people where baseball is today, it's really built off a lot of the progression in those-- the progressive nature of the Negro Leagues.

And what we love to do here at Xbox is celebrate these social impact moments. And you all have a version of that especially specifically in this game, obviously in your continued partnership with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which is in Kansas City, Missouri. MLB The Show will donate $1 for every Negro Leagues Edition, Digital Deluxe Edition, and MVP Edition sold in the US for the rest of the year. So $1 will go to the Baseball Museum to ensure that future generations know that history as well, which is great.

Now, I wanted to shift gears a little bit to talk about another Storyline. And this one hits close to home. I was born in New York. And growing up in New York in the '90s and the early 2000s, there was one player, number 2, on the New York Yankees that always stood out as The Captain, one of his nicknames. And that's Derek Jeter.

And he has his own Storyline that I believe starts with the first portion of his career. So I know why Derek Jeter. But I'm curious, from your perspective, Ramone, I'll start with you, why you decided to pick Derek Jeter to do this Storyline after.

- I think you answered it.

- Yeah.

RAMONE RUSSELL: If you think about the Yankees, what player immediately comes to mind? Derek Jeter and the number 2 on the Yankees uniform is going to be one of the top players that comes to mind. And he has such a unique story.

And so there are no right or wrong answers. But Derek Jeter just made sense. And we knew that when we develop Storylines, it was a vehicle to tell impactful stories around the game of baseball.

And maybe the fans kind of seen that coming with Negro Leagues. But this was really an opportunity for us to talk to someone who is still alive. That's one of the biggest differences between the Negro League Storylines and the Derek Jeter Storylines, is we get to sit down and talk to Derek Jeter and ask him specific questions.

And these are questions that probably haven't been asked to him before. So even if you've seen a bunch of Derek Jeter documentaries, you're going to learn some new things that he shared exclusively with us. And you're only going to see that in Derek Jeter's Storylines. Jared Schiff and that team spent a lot of time really trying to make Derek Jeter's Storyline special.

It's in the same universe as the Negro League Storyline, but it's completely different. The art is different. The music is different. The themes are different.

It's a lot longer because we have so much more information about Derek Jeter because everything was on video. All those games were televised. So it's a really amazing opportunity for us to continue to tell impactful stories in the baseball sphere in an interactive medium that we call video games.

- 100%. And Ashley, as someone-- as a content specialist, as someone who helps put together these stories, what did it mean to you to, as Ramone was mentioning, go ahead and put that research in and bring it to life in a gameplay setting?

- It's incredible. I was born and raised Chicago but knew a lot about Jeter and his New York nativeness. So as a developer on this game, I learned so much. I knew that I thought I had everything figured out about Derek Jeter.

But as I was creating and working with Jared and the team on this project, there was so much new excitement that we were discovering. And it's really, really cool. I think fans are going to see a lot of little Easter eggs, if you will, in some of the new presentation and UI that's coming in Storylines, Derek Jeter.

- 100%. And to your point, Ashley, I feel like no matter where you are in this country, Derek Jeter was someone you looked at. And maybe if you weren't a Yankees fan, you envied not having him on your team.

And one of the stories that I know you'll eventually tell is the Mr. November, which was, of course, a moment that happened after the September 11 attacks, where the baseball season was pushed into November. And he famously won that game. And I think even in the trailer, they had the recreation of the fan who held up the Mr. November sign. So that was really cool to see.

So I'm excited to jump into that and-- I was fairly young when Derek Jeter was playing, even though I had high admiration for him. But I'm happy that through this game, a game that you all made, I can go in and experience that. And there's nothing better in the world than that.

Now, Ashley, Road to the Show is back this year. And this game continues to push boundaries. And now, for the first time ever, you're going to be able to play as women in Road to the Show, Women Pave Their Way. Can you tell us a little bit about what fans can expect when they jump into this story?

- Absolutely. As you touched on, for the first time ever in a Major League Baseball-affiliated video game, players will be able to create women ballplayers and experience their journey in Road to the Show. So we will have our male and female Road to the Show. But of course, at its core, this is the same mode that people are fans know and love.

What's a little bit different about female Road to the Show is that, of course, you'll be able to create your woman ballplayer. But there's a little bit more of a narrative experience that our team, with Molly, has worked incredibly hard on, where our female ballplayer is going to join her friend, Mia Lewis. And they're going to work together as they make their way to the major leagues.

And with that, we will see the different struggles and challenges of women paving their way to Major League Baseball. Because although it hasn't happened yet in real life, we know there's going to be struggles. We know there's going to be experiences unique to women in their MLB experience maybe not-- maybe it isn't as similar to men. But of course, at its core, you're going to be a ballplayer. You're going to make your way to the major leagues. And it's going to be a good time.

- Yeah. And what must it feel like, from your perspective, to build art that, I guess, life will end up imitating art? You're literally building a game that is telegraphing the future of where Major League Baseball is going. That must be super rewarding, I imagine.

- Yes. It is beyond rewarding. Speaking personally, I have been playing video games ever since I could hold a controller in my hands. When I was 13, I actually tried out for my local boys travel baseball team. So to combine my love of video games and baseball, and to really see this mode come to life and actually see something for the very first time-- I can see myself reflected in female Road to the Show, which I am beyond excited about. And I'm very, very pumped for our fans to reach an even bigger audience of people being able to see themselves in this wonderful game.

- Oh, I love it. I cannot wait to jump in and see what you all have created. And as Ashley mentioned, Molly Braly, who's the narrative designer, did a great interview with Ramone that is on the PlayStation blog that you can check out and read more about Road to the Show, Women Pave Their Way, which I'm, again, super excited to jump into. Ramone, Ashley, this has been great. I think fans are super excited to jump into MLB The Show 24 when it hits later this month. Any last parting words for the community?

- Game comes out very, very soon. The team worked their butts off, like they do every year. They tried to put together, again, one of the most complete sports games we've ever put out.

We can't wait for everybody to try it. Whether it's Road to the Show, Diamond Dynasty, coming back to play Storylines, or you just want to jump into Franchise Mode and play as your favorite team, MLB The Show 24 has a lot to offer. And we're excited that it launches right here.

ASHLEY SANDERS: I couldn't have said it any better myself. It's really just, play your way, play your style. Franchise, Storylines, Diamond Dynasty, Road to the Show-- whatever fans are wanting, they're going to be getting.

- 100%. Well, as they mentioned, MLB The Show 24 hits March 19, and again, day 1 on Xbox Game Pass. Ashley and Ramone, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck on the launch.

- Thank you so much, Malik.

- Thank you so much.

- Thanks for coming back after I booted you off for Kiki. I changed my hoodie back because it was a little bit too much gold. It'll make sense when you watch it.

- OK. OK.

- We definitely did not tape that on a different day. Scene change.

- Yeah, exactly. I tried to match it, and then I forgot. Oh, I don't remember what shoes I wore, so we're just we're going to-- we're going for discontinuity here.

- That's great.

- And of course, thanks to Tina and Lori Wright. And actually, next week, I think we'll be reporting in from GDC. I want to play all these indie games that we're going to be having at our event. And--

- I'm so envious you're going.

- --talking about some of the good ones.

- Yeah, same.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You don't get to go either, GDC?

- No.

- Oh, tragic.

- He didn't invite us.

- Unbelievable.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I'm the key holder.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I said, maybe next year.

- [SIGHS] It's a tight list. It's a tight list.

- I didn't get to go see Bad Bunny this week, so--

- Oh--

- You know--

- So he's bitter. He's bitter.

- Yeah.

- We had to divide and conquer with all the events. So about MLB The Show-- as we just talked about, it'll be coming to Game Pass next week. But if you can't wait, there will be tomorrow, actually, the digital, deluxe, and MVP editions of that. And then also another game out this week, Star Wars Battlefront, Classic Collection. So there was Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefront II that were relatively recent, like, 2017, something like that.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That's exactly right.

- This is not that. You got to play this, Ethan.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah. This is the, I want to say, 2005--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think you're right.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, something like that. So this is a straight shot from my childhood. I think I was in middle school when this came out. But yeah, for folks that remember the Classic Collection, this is going to be a little shot of nostalgia for you.

I played probably three hours yesterday, just a small little play session, and it was great to dive back in. Even some of the choices that games made back then-- graphics weren't up to snuff, so there's a lot of scenes from the movie they just put in there to replace. I also remember my childhood fleshing out so much of the-- it's like, when you go back to old games, you think they look so much better than they did, I guess. And that's no knock on the game. It's from 2005.

But it was amazing to jump back in and just hear the voice lines like I'm a kid all over again. I also miss games that have-- Conquest Mode-- Galactic Conquest is the mode that some of you fans may remember, and this is where you actually get to pick one of the armies from the movies and try and take over the galaxy. But you're going from planet to planet, and there's a dynamic story and things that change.

I love any game that does this. Shoutout Chromehounds on the Xbox 360, did a great job of this. Helldivers is doing it right now, but games where you just really feel like you get to influence the end game and how things play out. Super fun to dive into Galactic Conquest. Diving into the story mode just tells the story of the movies.

But it is just the classic experience. You're going to be right at home if you've played this game before. And if you haven't ever played the original, you should dive in because it is a cult classic. I feel like people still talk about Battlefront II. And I think it even-- the original, for a long time, had a player base on PC years and years after it released. So it's great to jump back in.

- What character do you play as within the game?

- Personally, or just in general?

- Do you get to pick?

- Yeah. So you're picking soldiers. You get to be the rocket launcher guy, dude with a shotgun, a blaster-- you pick your loadout for a soldier.

And then if you play well enough, you get to be Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker. But it's temporary. It's like you have a health bar that slowly goes down.

So it's like, how much havoc can you wreak before you get taken out? But you get to play as all your favorite characters. And it's just-- yeah, if you're a fan of Star Wars, don't sleep on this one. It's just a perfect hit of nostalgia to go back to this one.

- And the music is all there.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, it's so good. Oops. I hit my mic. But it is like-- yeah, I grab one of these.

We're going to have to move the mic next time. That's on me. I'm a big "grab my chest" guy. But it is--

The audio itself is perfect. The music just sucks you in. Even the startup screen, I was just like-- you get that tingly feeling. I'm just like, ah. I'm back. We never left. It's such a good game.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very cool. And I feel like it was one of the first Star Wars games that really brought some of that scale when you would think about the Battle of Hoth. And we'd seen that going back to N64 and certain games. But this was when-- oh, wow. Now there's lots and lots of--

- Exactly. And they did a pretty revolutionary thing at the time, was they added-- especially when Battlefront II came out. Battlefront II, the original second one, this is going to get confusing, but it had-- they added these space battles that you get to pick all your ships and fly around. And you're fighting.

But you can actually land in the opponent's ship. You can get out of your ship. You can detonate the shield generator from the inside of the ship, these things that were just so ahead of their time.

It just made incredible, dynamic, multiplayer games, just a memorable experience. And it's split-screen, which I feel like not enough games are split-screen these days. So got to give them a shoutout for that. Couch co-op is a must.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very cool.

- Yeah.

- We're going to keep the nostalgia train going because another that came out about 20 years ago was called Outcast. This was-- really a pioneered a lot of the open world type of situation with non-linear, where you got to go where you wanted to go when you wanted to go. And anyway, as sequel is out now called Outcast, A New Beginning.

I watched a trailer on this. I don't have a lot of familiarity with the original Outcast. But I watched the trailer and I was like, this looks really fun. You're flying through the air like a-- you look a superhero, but just-- it just looked like fun, traversing exploration, flying around, shooting things. And anyway--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And it is a sequel, I believe, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah. The original was-- yeah. It takes place later on. So your character's actually an old dude.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So making me feel at home with my slow reflexes.

[LAUGHTER]

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You're immersed. You're immersed.

- Yeah. After getting my butt handed to me in The Finals, I'm like, I'm going to go be Cutter Slade.

- Yeah.

- That was a name we all had back about 20 years ago.

- My brother, Cutter.

- Yeah, exactly.

- It is a very action movie name. I love it.

- Actually, we're going to keep the retro thing going even more.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, let's do it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Contra, Operation Galuga. I watched a trailer for this, and I was like, it looks like Contra, but no.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And Contra was what I played when I was in elementary school on the NES. It's a Konami classic. There have been many versions of it. Some people say the Super Nintendo version was probably the best one.

- Do you remember the Konami code off the top of your head?

- I always remember the Konami code.

- OK.

- OK. Up, up-- up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start. Everyone knows that one.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And then there was--

- Yeah, everyone. I'm like, what are you talking about?

- Even the channel-- the WWE gaming channel is up, up, down, down.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

- Oh, OK.

- So anyway, that has existed. All right, maybe not everyone knows that. It's a generational thing.

- --middle name. Yeah.

- Everyone who's got gray hair--

- Some nice streaks.

- --right about here remembers the Konami code.

- OK.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: When you would do that-- because when you were playing the game, it would give you three lives. You ain't beating that game with three lives. I'm sure some people in Awesome Games Done Quick or something could do it. But eight-year-old me was not being that game in three lives.

You do that code. You get 30 lives. Then it's a bit more realistic that you're going to be able to take that game down. So anyway, super fun.

This one looks really good. It looks like it captures what Contra like if you were to make Contra now, it looks like this. It's still 2D or 2 and 1/2 D in certain situations. Best part, there's a demo available.

So if that hits you in the fields, go ahead and try that out. It might be something you're looking for. Try out the Konami code. See if it works. It has to.

- A lot of exciting games this week, a lot of intense games. But nothing is more intense than walking you-- watching you talk with your hands during this podcast because I am-- look at this water. You can see it on camera. I'm so scared you're going to--

- He's going to hit the mug.

- You've come close eight times. And I swear I'm focusing on that as much as the show.

- He's going to up, up, down, down that mug.

- Yeah.

- I am such a compulsive hand talker, so--

- Me too.

- --this week I did-- this week on Xbox, and I'm sitting there in my room voice-- and I'm still gesticulating.

- I get it.

- And I'm like-- it just happens.

- I get it. Yeah.

- I apologize.

- You shouldn't.

- This is why I'm sat over here, so--

- You're going to hit me from over there.

- That's my range. It's the splash area, the slap area. We'll just keep it-- OK.

- Yeah.

- These don't work.

- Thank goodness for that.

- All right. A few more games that are out now through Game Pass, meaning if you're watching this, you probably have access to them. We talked about a few of these. But one that we didn't talk about that popped out there and is there now-- NBA 2K24.

Getting into the business end of the NBA season, so perfect time to jump in there, create your player and catch up with the NBA season before we get into the playoffs. Always great to see this come to Game Pass. That's always, for my money, the best-looking sports game that's out there year after year.

HAILEY GELLER: Totally.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We talked about this a little bit, but very excited about it, SpongeBob Squarepants, Battle for Bikini Bottom, Rehydrated. Can you do the pirate accent?

- [CLEARS THROAT] I don't know.

- At the very beginning. I tried nailing it, but see--

- Are you ready, kids?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Are you ready, kids?

- That was pretty good.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Maybe an hour ago, when I had just woke up-- ask me right when I wake up, and I'm raspy--

- Raspy, yeah.

- --a little bit of phlegm--

- Well, we tried. It's out for Game Pass.

- Nice. Have you seen the console--

- I thought you were trying to get her to do the pirate.

- I'm not going to do that.

- OK. OK. OK.

- But you do have something else.

- Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

I was going to ask, did you see the console and controller blasted across your socials, anyone?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You would be the one to plug this--

HAILEY GELLER: Anyone?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Well, we did see this. We talked about it a bit last week. But for those who didn't watch or listen, tell us about it.

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah. I guess if you didn't get the opportunity to get the console from the drop on Best Buy app, the Xbox Twitter channel is running a sweepstakes. So a retweet to win. If you didn't get that lovely console off the Best Buy app, now's your chance. I think the sweepstakes is running from now-ish until April 7.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So there's that. So we did make hundreds of them. We made 101, and there's still one--

- One left. Yes.

- --up for grabs. So make sure you go ahead and enter in there. And then, of course, once you get it, you can download through Game Pass SpongeBob Squarepants, Battle for Bikini Bottom, Rehydrated. Also, Control, Ultimate Edition, again, one of the best games of the last five years, easily.

Definitely looking forward to going back. I never played the Alan Wake expansion, and that's included here. There were a few expansions in this game.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: We talked about that a bit last week.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We did.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah. And that's-- same way. I haven't played Control or Alan Wake.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh. Oh, OK.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I know. And I'm such a horror fan. It's on the list.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: But you guys were gushing about it so much last week.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You really should play Control, both of you. It's less horror, a little more shooter. You're not as restrained, in terms-- it's not a survival horror the way Alan Wake especially.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's still a funky, cool story.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Definitely creepy, but it's really cool.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, got to play it. It's a must.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And No More Heroes III also available right now through the magic of Xbox Game Pass. Hey, we are winding down the show here. So we can't end a show without giving you a little something.

We can't promise you a SpongeBob console. Actually, I can't promise you just about anything other than what's coming to Game Pass. However, for Free Code Friday this week, we have MLB The Show 24 game codes to give away to a handful of you lucky listeners. You know how it works. You go over on Friday, in this case, it'll be Friday, March 15, over to twitter.com/xboxwire at noon Pacific.

And at that point, we are going to ask you this question. You reply. We will pick five winners at random. But it has to be a legitimate answer to the question. OK, the question is, if you ran a sports team, what would the mascot be?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You go first. You made me talk first earlier.

HAILEY GELLER: OK.

- Hailey.

- I guess, act surprised, the Corgis.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The Corgis. OK.

- Shocker.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think a corgi makes for a good--

- It'd be so cute.

- Because you could have the corgi on the field--

- Yeah, running.

- Like, imagine if this fall, when the manager comes out to do a pitching change and the corgi comes out, everyone would be happy.

- They have corgi races, I think, in some-- isn't there a corgi meetup in California they do?

- Oh, I would know.

- Yeah. Why don't you know this? Rude!

- --plumbers don't wear ties definitive edition.

- Priorities.

- Yeah.

- I'm pretty sure that there's corgi meetups and they do corgi races. So yeah--

- Obviously.

- --have that every single game.

- You need to infiltrate into the corgi society.

- Bring them all. Everyone needs that.

- You saw the studio corgi, right?

- Yes. So cute.

- Cincinnati Corgis. I feel like I could deal with.

- The Cincinnati Corgis.

- CC. Yeah, that'd be cute.

- That's good. Jeff, you've got to go next.

- No, no. I don't have to go. I'm the host. I don't have to go.

- So I do love--

- He'll have a list.

- I do love dogs-- no, I don't.

- [LAUGHS]

- That was pretty good,

- Thank you.

- I do love dogs just because you could have a real dog, and I love dogs. The masochist in me wants to say the Snakes because the idea of someone dressing up in a mascot snake with no legs and arms, just slithering around the field--

- Wobbling around--

- [LAUGHS] That poor kid.

- An Anaconda or something? Makes it a little more--

- Yeah, you could. A little cobra. But still, explicitly no arms and legs. So the actor inside has to-- is just forced to slither around the field. [LAUGHS] Yeah.

- OK. Shouldn't have asked you.

- I'm not going to be getting a sports team any time soon, ladies and gentlemen.

- Definitely not now, even in MLB. So I'm from Philly, and we-- there doesn't have to be any theme for your mascot.

- That's right.

- The Philadelphia Phillies have the Philly Phanatic, which is just a green dude who is super obnoxious and--

HAILEY GELLER: But the Flyers have a great--

- And the Flyers have Gritty--

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah, the best mascot of all time.

- Exactly. So it doesn't have to have a theme to be memorable, if not legendary.

HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.

- But I was thinking, I live out here in the Pacific Northwest. And the thing that people have been talking about the most, animal-wise, for the last little bit have been murder hornets. And I feel like the Murder Hornets would be a pretty good--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: What a name. Yeah.

HAILEY GELLER: Ooh.

- That would be a pretty good--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that's pretty intimidating.

- Yeah, exactly.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: We're going up against the Murder Hornets this week.

- Exactly. You'd better win. I think if you're the Murder Hornets, you'd better be good.

- Be a rugby team or something.

- Yes. Yeah.

- It's giving rugby.

- Not a table tennis team or something like that.

- No, it's not. Yeah. It's not a shuffle-- I don't even know.

- Shuffleboard. Yes.

- No, curling. That's what I was thinking of.

- Oh, yeah. Curling.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That would work.

- The curling Murder Hornets.

- Have you ever been curling?

- No. I've heard it's delightful.

- It is actually a really good time.

- I have sweeped my kitchen.

- You're halfway there.

- So--

- Just do it more vigorously.

- Swiffer Duster is the closest.

- Here's what you do this weekend. Pour just 3 to 4 inches of water in your kitchen and just open the windows. Let it freeze.

- Let it freeze.

- You'll be in business.

- OK. Wife's going to love that.

- There we go. Oh, this is a show about gaming, and it's over, actually, for this week. So take your mascot.

Look out for twitter.com/xboxwire noon tomorrow and tell us what your mascot would be. It's probably going to be better than those, probably not better than Corgis. I think that's the winner here today.

- It might be a close tie.

- Yeah.

- Anyway, next week, I'll be down at GDC. Tina will be down at GDC. So we'll try and record a remote show.

Maybe we'll see you guys. Maybe we'll see Malik. But we hope to see you either way. So thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next week.

[THEME MUSIC]